Kearns Building

The Kearns Building is a historic office building in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).^[1]

Kearns Building
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Kearns Building, May 2019
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Location	132 South Main Street Salt Lake City, Utah United States
Coordinates	40°45′58″N 111°53′27″W
Area	0 acres (0 ha)
Built	1909 (1909)
Built by	George Curley
Architect	Parkinson & Bergstrom
Architectural style	Late 19th And Early 20th Century American Movements, Sullivanesque
MPS	Salt Lake City Business District MRA
NRHP reference No.	82004145[1]
Added to NRHP	August 17, 1982

Description

The Kearns Building in 1911

The 10-story building was designed by Los Angeles architects John Parkinson and George Bergstrom and constructed 1909–1911. Parkinson & Bergstrom borrowed the style of architect Louis Sullivan, and the Kearns Building has been described as Sullivanesque, with a steel reinforced concrete frame and a white terracotta tile facade emphasizing vertical piers below a prominent cornice. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.^[2]

The style of a Louis Sullivan skyscraper was built on classical form, with prominent window and door openings at street level, bands of windows between vertical piers, and a distinctive, highly decorated cornice. Often Sullivan designed porthole windows under a cornice.^[3] Parkinson & Bergstrom used centered medallions between spandrels recessed behind the plane of piers to achieve a similar appearance.^[2]

The Kearns Building was named for Thomas Kearns, a wealthy former Utah senator and major stockholder in The Salt Lake Tribune. During construction of the building, Kearns was accused of manipulating the city council and its building code.^[4]

A third of office space in the building was rented prior to opening in February, 1911,^[5] and most of the offices were rented by April of that year.^[6] Early tenants of the building included clothiers Gardner & Adams Co.^[7] and Rowe & Kelly,^[8][9] and the building included what was billed as "the most beautiful buffet in the United States," the Mecca.^[10]

See also

• National Register of Historic Places portal
• Utah portal

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Salt Lake City
• Aberdeen Quarry, the source of granite used for the first-floor columns and entrance archway
• Chicago school (architecture)